The British press has quite the history for breaking scandals and significant stories, pushing boundaries and finding itself often in the crosshairs of the public and British government for how it pursues a lead. Terry Kirby accounts the history of the (mostly British) tabloid press in Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism.
Kirby’s account is roughly 90% the history of British journalism, with the remaining 10% devoted to the American press. Within that 90%, much covers the rise of newspapers and eventually tabloid news as a main source of information for Brits. Rupert Murdoch gets plenty of coverage , along with the various scandals his newspapers produced over his years of owning media outlets in the UK.
The Newsmongers is a fast-paced account of British press, at times a dizzying account of figuring out news and their associations to various outlets. As an American, I was at times trying to make heads of which scandal was tied to which publisher or which paper since I only had some basic background on how British tabloid journalism operated. However, the book’s frenetic pace is somewhat symbolic in some quarters of journalism: fast-paced and frenetic.
MY RATING: 4
